(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)
I thought about calling this part “prevent premature promotion”, but I’m not Stan Lee. 
Anyway…
“Promotion”, in this case, is adding your blog to search engines and directories, asking friends and other people to link to it, linking to it yourself in your other blogs or sites (if you have any), adding it to sites like Technorati, Blogshares, etc….
And “premature”, of course, means “before the right time”. “What do you mean, right time? Shouldn’t I do everything in my power to promote my new blog, as soon as the blogging equivalent of a “Hello World” program is in there?”, you may ask.
Nope. It’s a bad idea. It’s not the end of the world, but it will harm you in the long run, and may take some time to recover from.
Premature promotion of a blog is the equivalent of newspaper ads for a new store, saying “open now!”, which, when people go there, is still under construction, with a sign saying “opening soon”. Nobody with half a brain would do that, right? (which means that only people who wear ties would do it.)
Think about it this way: anyone who goes to your blog or site and sees nothing of interest there… will probably never come back. That’s a lost visitor. Forever. Someone who could have become a regular visitor if only he or she had come there after there was something interesting to see.
So, when should you promote your site? At least, consider the following:
- The site should have a couple of articles - 5 or more, if possible, but at least a couple of them. And most of them should be actual content, not a “welcome to my blog” message.
- The site should be search-engine friendly. That means, among other things, no broken links, proper HTML, all the site’s sections in working order…
- You should be using the definitive theme, not the original one which “came with the software” (unless that’s the one you’ll be using). “Definitive” doesn’t have to mean that you’ll never change it - just that you won’t change it tomorrow.
- In general, your blog should no longer be “in testing”. If you’re still trying out plugins, enable and disabling features, testing stuff… it’s too early. Finish those tests first.
After all of that, unleash hell! Unless you’re a small child, or a Christian fundamentalist, in which case, unleash heck!
EDIT: An important exception: suppose you have just registered your domain, but the site won’t be “live” for some time; in that case, add it to Google (at least) as soon as the domain is up and you have something there - even a simple “Under construction” page. The reason for this is the Google Sandbox - it usually affects “new” sites, and if Google has known about yours for months, it won’t be seen as “new”. But do all the submitting again when your site goes “live”.
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I think I may have promoted my blog too early - but it paid off. In the first month of my blog had got 300 UV a month. Now I’m in the thousands.
Well, as I said, it’s not the end of the world. It can just mean that the indexed version is, for a while, the “under construction” one. And it may make some visitors dismiss the partly non-functional blog and never return.
Note that this can be just a matter of a day or two. It can be tempting to, after you’ve finished installing WordPress or Movable Type, promote the blog everywhere you want, even though there are no articles. But if you delay it until there are some, and until you have settled on a look, it’s better.
Also, there’s an entirely different point: preparing a blog for some event. In such a case, the blog should be heavily promoted months before the event. But that’s for a future part.